The Borgias 1.07
May. 9th, 2011 02:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakOne of many reasons why I love this show (and Neil Jordan for creating it): in addition to doing justice to its Spanish-Italian titular clan, it makes me care about people I had previously been indifferent towards in the Borgia saga, such as Giulia Farnese or Alfonso of Naples. And they introduce people who I thought I wouldn't get to see until next season at the earliest. And there is three dimensionality all around. This episode was a great case in point.
Case in point for the three dimensionality: Guiliano della Rovere's sincere shock when confronted with the visceral reality of the war he has invited. (It's also an interesting choice given he's going to end up as the warrior Pope eventually.) These are the things that make the difference (for me) between an entertaining but ultimately forgettable show and one which really gets me emotionally. If bothers to render its antagonists human as well as its protagonists. I also continue to appreciate the depiction of Charles of France, making the point that the brutality of his orders re: Lucca has a purpose (and one that Machiavelli grasps immediately in Florence) rather than being mustache twirling.
Similarly: the way the show deals with Rodrigo's attitude towards religion. The pilot made the point in his response to his inauguration but here it is again, and it's so period appropriate that I can handwave mistakes like Giulia riding apparantly alone through the Romagna which no high born lady would ever have done. He's corrupt in basically any definition of the word, but he's also quite sincere in his faith - not just the need to believe himself ultimately justified but his faith. The scene where he talks to Giulia about the confessor he had as a young priest and her response sum up the contradictions and layers which make the interesting whole: he's the Pope talking to his mistress, and you can't get much more blatantly breaking vows than that (welll, you can by handing out assassination orders to your son, but well, been there, done that), but what he talks about still is not a lie, and she takes him at his word.
Which brings me to Giulia Farnese (love the way the characters still continue to love saying her full name *g*). I read somewhere the actress at first wasn't keen on the role, because she thought, mistress, well, a lot of bed scenes and no more than that, boring, and then read the scripts and changed her opinion, and this episode was a great example why. In addition to Rodrigo confiding in her about both politics and spiritual problems, the show keeps developing her friendship with Lucrezia, and now adds by making Giulia - not Cesare, not any of the other Borgia males, but Giulia - the first member of Lucrezia's nearest and dearest to confront Giovanni Sforza after their marriage. That she does so over a political matter with the private aspect added is great; that we meet Caterina Sforza for the first time is an unexpected and awesome bonus. Caterina Sforza: one of the most colourful larger-than-life characters of her larger-than-life time. Ends up battling Cesare when the later is leading armies a few more years down the line. Probably the most famous anecdote about Caterina: the way she got out of imprisonment of the Orsis. She left her children as hostages, and when they threatened to kill them after discovering she had double-crossed them, she stood on the fortress walls lifting her skirts, showed her genitals and said: "I have the instruments to bear more!" That was in 1488, so Giulia when alluding to Caterina's reputation of not avoiding bloodshed is probably thinking of that story as well.
Since in tv world a woman being nauseous is in 99% of the cases code for the woman being pregnant, I expect even if you never read a single Borgia biography you deduced she must be pregnant before Giulia does. It appears the show is going with the most popular theory about the infans Romanus, with possibly an added twist. The facts, as the narrator of Pushing Daisies was fond of declaring, the facts were these: we have two documents. In one Rodrigo acknowledges a bastard child, and in the other Cesare does. This added to the incest rumours as the child in question was supposed to be the same, and speculated to be Lucrezia's because of a few missing months of retreat after her first marriage, but the more likely explanation was that Lucrezia, when her marriage with Giovanni Sforza was annulled, was pregnant. Since the official reason for the annullment was that Giovanni Sforza was impotent and had been unable to consumate the marriage (which he indignantly denied once he was out of Borgia reach), in which case Lucrezia should have been virgo intacta (especially since they were planning on marrying her again), she could not be seen or acknowledged having a child. Not to mention that men having recognized bastards was par the course, women, otoh... However, Rodrigo was not the type of to dispense with inconvenient babies. Get rid of their fathers by violent means, perhaps, but if you were a Borgia, you damn well got acknowledged as a Borgia. Hence the infans Romanus as a documented Borgia. Though why two documents, one naming Rodrigo and one Cesare as the father (with no mention of the name of the mother) was always something of a puzzle. Now, given that Ursula at the end of her scene with Cesare puts her hands on her belly, which is another tv code for pregnancy, I wonder whether the show isn't going with the simple explanation that there were in fact two different children, one for each document. Ursula, now being a nun, would also have reason not to want her name on such a document.
Speaking of the Ursula scene, I think that was the first where these two (i.e. Ursula and Cesare) saw each other clearly instead of the mutual projections and illusions they had. If I'm wrong about Ursula as the second pregnant woman I expect that was her last scene, and it was a good exit one; she stands by her decision but also, while now seeing Cesare for what he is, does not demonize him, either and thus paradoxically gives him what the relationship did not, a bit of self realisation and truth.
The earlier scene with Cesare and Lucrezia where Cesare addresses how Lucrezia has changed made me wonder how much the regret for her lost childhood is for himself, though, and whether they won't have to re-negotiate their relationship once she's back in Rome as you know she will be (post pregnancy). Suddenly Lucrezia comes across as the more mature between them. There is also the sadness there in both of them, the awareness that no matter what Cesare says, as long as Giovanni Sforza is useful to their father he won't act against him (of course, Giovanni has just stopped being useful as of this episode.
Lucrezia's future husband No.2 has just one scene in this episode, and it's another of these humanizing three dimensions making show touches: we see Alfonso trying to feed his father without any witnesses (and a noted absence of cackling) and showing the fear and distress the advance of the French army and the worry for said father leaves in him. As with della Rovere both ambitious and willing to go over dead bodies but able to be distressed when seeing a city laid to waste and women killed in front of him, Rodrigo both enjoying his mistress and his riches and longing for a clear conscience and a direct connection to God, show!Alfonso enjoying mind and fright games with visitors and actually being fond of his decaying monster of a father, and really not keen on having an invading army on the doorstep makes the character human instead of a stereotype.
To get back to Giulia Farnese again, yet another reason why the show makes me care for her is that she exudes competence and I do adore it when characters are competent. Note that when she realizes Lucrezia is pregnant (and that Giovanni Sforza can't be the father), she does not raise a fuss; instead, she starts organizing their departure from the Sforza premises as quickly as possible. I do wonder, given that one of the show's additions to the character was her abortion backstory, whether she's going to suggest this to Lucrezia, or whether her own experience will make her suggest not having one. Both would be plausible to me, and that, too, says something about the richness of the character.
Lastly: poor Paolo. You are such a redshirt, even if you weren't based on Perotto. The only question is whether the show will have the Sforzas or the Borgias cause your untimely demise. The way the series keeps pointing out the social differences between him and Lucrezia - that he can't read or write, and is unfamiliar with nearly all her references and comparisons - makes this unexpectedly poignant.
Case in point for the three dimensionality: Guiliano della Rovere's sincere shock when confronted with the visceral reality of the war he has invited. (It's also an interesting choice given he's going to end up as the warrior Pope eventually.) These are the things that make the difference (for me) between an entertaining but ultimately forgettable show and one which really gets me emotionally. If bothers to render its antagonists human as well as its protagonists. I also continue to appreciate the depiction of Charles of France, making the point that the brutality of his orders re: Lucca has a purpose (and one that Machiavelli grasps immediately in Florence) rather than being mustache twirling.
Similarly: the way the show deals with Rodrigo's attitude towards religion. The pilot made the point in his response to his inauguration but here it is again, and it's so period appropriate that I can handwave mistakes like Giulia riding apparantly alone through the Romagna which no high born lady would ever have done. He's corrupt in basically any definition of the word, but he's also quite sincere in his faith - not just the need to believe himself ultimately justified but his faith. The scene where he talks to Giulia about the confessor he had as a young priest and her response sum up the contradictions and layers which make the interesting whole: he's the Pope talking to his mistress, and you can't get much more blatantly breaking vows than that (welll, you can by handing out assassination orders to your son, but well, been there, done that), but what he talks about still is not a lie, and she takes him at his word.
Which brings me to Giulia Farnese (love the way the characters still continue to love saying her full name *g*). I read somewhere the actress at first wasn't keen on the role, because she thought, mistress, well, a lot of bed scenes and no more than that, boring, and then read the scripts and changed her opinion, and this episode was a great example why. In addition to Rodrigo confiding in her about both politics and spiritual problems, the show keeps developing her friendship with Lucrezia, and now adds by making Giulia - not Cesare, not any of the other Borgia males, but Giulia - the first member of Lucrezia's nearest and dearest to confront Giovanni Sforza after their marriage. That she does so over a political matter with the private aspect added is great; that we meet Caterina Sforza for the first time is an unexpected and awesome bonus. Caterina Sforza: one of the most colourful larger-than-life characters of her larger-than-life time. Ends up battling Cesare when the later is leading armies a few more years down the line. Probably the most famous anecdote about Caterina: the way she got out of imprisonment of the Orsis. She left her children as hostages, and when they threatened to kill them after discovering she had double-crossed them, she stood on the fortress walls lifting her skirts, showed her genitals and said: "I have the instruments to bear more!" That was in 1488, so Giulia when alluding to Caterina's reputation of not avoiding bloodshed is probably thinking of that story as well.
Since in tv world a woman being nauseous is in 99% of the cases code for the woman being pregnant, I expect even if you never read a single Borgia biography you deduced she must be pregnant before Giulia does. It appears the show is going with the most popular theory about the infans Romanus, with possibly an added twist. The facts, as the narrator of Pushing Daisies was fond of declaring, the facts were these: we have two documents. In one Rodrigo acknowledges a bastard child, and in the other Cesare does. This added to the incest rumours as the child in question was supposed to be the same, and speculated to be Lucrezia's because of a few missing months of retreat after her first marriage, but the more likely explanation was that Lucrezia, when her marriage with Giovanni Sforza was annulled, was pregnant. Since the official reason for the annullment was that Giovanni Sforza was impotent and had been unable to consumate the marriage (which he indignantly denied once he was out of Borgia reach), in which case Lucrezia should have been virgo intacta (especially since they were planning on marrying her again), she could not be seen or acknowledged having a child. Not to mention that men having recognized bastards was par the course, women, otoh... However, Rodrigo was not the type of to dispense with inconvenient babies. Get rid of their fathers by violent means, perhaps, but if you were a Borgia, you damn well got acknowledged as a Borgia. Hence the infans Romanus as a documented Borgia. Though why two documents, one naming Rodrigo and one Cesare as the father (with no mention of the name of the mother) was always something of a puzzle. Now, given that Ursula at the end of her scene with Cesare puts her hands on her belly, which is another tv code for pregnancy, I wonder whether the show isn't going with the simple explanation that there were in fact two different children, one for each document. Ursula, now being a nun, would also have reason not to want her name on such a document.
Speaking of the Ursula scene, I think that was the first where these two (i.e. Ursula and Cesare) saw each other clearly instead of the mutual projections and illusions they had. If I'm wrong about Ursula as the second pregnant woman I expect that was her last scene, and it was a good exit one; she stands by her decision but also, while now seeing Cesare for what he is, does not demonize him, either and thus paradoxically gives him what the relationship did not, a bit of self realisation and truth.
The earlier scene with Cesare and Lucrezia where Cesare addresses how Lucrezia has changed made me wonder how much the regret for her lost childhood is for himself, though, and whether they won't have to re-negotiate their relationship once she's back in Rome as you know she will be (post pregnancy). Suddenly Lucrezia comes across as the more mature between them. There is also the sadness there in both of them, the awareness that no matter what Cesare says, as long as Giovanni Sforza is useful to their father he won't act against him (of course, Giovanni has just stopped being useful as of this episode.
Lucrezia's future husband No.2 has just one scene in this episode, and it's another of these humanizing three dimensions making show touches: we see Alfonso trying to feed his father without any witnesses (and a noted absence of cackling) and showing the fear and distress the advance of the French army and the worry for said father leaves in him. As with della Rovere both ambitious and willing to go over dead bodies but able to be distressed when seeing a city laid to waste and women killed in front of him, Rodrigo both enjoying his mistress and his riches and longing for a clear conscience and a direct connection to God, show!Alfonso enjoying mind and fright games with visitors and actually being fond of his decaying monster of a father, and really not keen on having an invading army on the doorstep makes the character human instead of a stereotype.
To get back to Giulia Farnese again, yet another reason why the show makes me care for her is that she exudes competence and I do adore it when characters are competent. Note that when she realizes Lucrezia is pregnant (and that Giovanni Sforza can't be the father), she does not raise a fuss; instead, she starts organizing their departure from the Sforza premises as quickly as possible. I do wonder, given that one of the show's additions to the character was her abortion backstory, whether she's going to suggest this to Lucrezia, or whether her own experience will make her suggest not having one. Both would be plausible to me, and that, too, says something about the richness of the character.
Lastly: poor Paolo. You are such a redshirt, even if you weren't based on Perotto. The only question is whether the show will have the Sforzas or the Borgias cause your untimely demise. The way the series keeps pointing out the social differences between him and Lucrezia - that he can't read or write, and is unfamiliar with nearly all her references and comparisons - makes this unexpectedly poignant.
